Academics get notice but unhealthy practices exist
The number of citations of Chinese academic papers has reportedly reached a level that puts China in second place in the world, with experts saying that it shows an improvement in China's research ability.
The Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) found that papers from Chinese research fellows from 2007 to October 2017 had been cited 19.35 million times, an increase of 29.9 percent compared with the data collected in 2016, news site people.cn reported on Tuesday.
China went past Germany and the UK in becoming second, with the total number of theses being cited for the period at 20,131, or 14.7 percent of the world total, and putting China in third place in that field, according to people.cn.
The citations of papers on scientific materials from China ranked first in the world in 2016, and the number of papers in agricultural sciences and chemistry stayed in a leading position.
"The increase in the number of Chinese academic papers being cited signals an improvement in their quality," Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times.
Another reason for the increase is China's improved scientific research ability in recent years, especially with an increasing number of faculty in research and the evaluation system placing more importance on the number of citations, Zhi Zhenfeng, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Global Times on Tuesday.
Nonetheless, ISTIC statistics show the Science Citation Index included 324,200 technology papers from China in 2016, while the US figure was 502,300.
In addition, Zhi pointed out that, in spite of the achievements, the number on papers cited should not be the only evaluation of a country's research ability and the national evaluation system on scientific achievements as it is now, is too concerned with the number of papers.
"Chinese scholars should pay more attention to the quality of the papers rather than the quantity, and there has been some academic fraud taking place in the current evaluation system," Zhi pointed out, adding that the national evaluation system also focuses on controlling abusive academic behavior and encourages concentration on academic contributions.
One case of academic fraud involving a Chinese scholar in 2017 got a lot of attention worldwide and several departments had to put some effort into correcting the unhealthy practices and customs in academia, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
